You Raise Me Up
by dancingloki
Summary: When Sherlock Holmes was born, his mother was horrified to find him defective. Winglock, John/Sherlock, themes of child abuse/neglect.


When Sherlock Holmes was born, his mother was horrified to find him defective.

Mycroft had been perfectly normal; a bit oversized if anything, but an ordinary healthy baby boy any blue-blooded English mother could be proud of. Sherlock, however, had tufts growing from the backs of his shoulder blades.

The attending nurse who took him to be cleaned thought at first they were merely bits of placenta that had stuck, but when they stubbornly refused to wash away he realised they were feathers—if you could call them that. Little tufts of down, sprouting from his very skin.

Being a professional, and English to boot, he did not scream and drop him, but left the babe in the basin to fetch the doctor for consultation.

After a thorough inspection, the diagnosis was confirmed; the infant had sprouts of little downy feathers, like a chick's, growing from his back.

The doctor, naturally, wished to perform a CAT scan to determine the origin; if it was simply a vestigial throwback or growth that had popped up in the womb, or if the source was more detestable. She hastened to reassure the new mother that it would be perfectly safe, that her son would come to no harm during the procedure, only to be slapped in the face by a flat stare and a sharp tone.

"That's hardly my concern, doctor. If it can't be cured, what do I care if it kills the little freak?"

She was taken aback by the mother's coldness, but knew better than to protest or offend so prestigious a client, and instead bustled the baby off, clearing a machine for immediate use.

The scan results were serious. The feathers were merely the tip of a strange bone structure that extended back into his scapula and was fully integrated with his shoulders and humeri. The doctor bravely explained, in the face of Mrs. Holmes' frigid scowl, that while the tips could be clipped, the rest of the bones could not be removed without the child losing the use of his arms, permanently.

"Do what you can, then." The doctor resolutely told the mother, setting her jaw, that such an elective procedure would be impossible until the infant was several weeks old. Else the chance of the child dying during surgery were too high, and Mrs. Holmes may not care, she stubbornly insisted, but no respectable surgeon would violate the Hippocratic oath by taking such a risk, not for any one or any price.

During the six weeks the doctor insisted upon, Mrs. Holmes refused to hold or even look at the baby. Word was put about that the child was frail and sickly, and Sherlock was fed and cared for by a wet nurse (who was bound to secrecy by legal contract and by Mrs. Holmes' most intimidating threats) and kept out of the way, in a back room of the enormous mansion. The down grew longer and fluffier, pretty grey feathers like a gull's. The wet nurse was fond of stroking them; she found it calmed the colicky boy and soothed him to sleep.

The surgery was a success; the tips of the bones were snipped off, the feathers incinerated with the rest of the medical waste. Sherlock's mother was ecstatic, and eagerly held the child for the first time since his birth. The surgeon's work was exquisite; the incisions healed with only the barest hint of a scar, almost invisible, and no abnormal bone structure was visible to look at him. Mrs. Holmes proudly introduced her second son to polite society, Mycroft standing at well-trained attention by her skirts.

Sherlock began teething around six months, and was inconsolable. Mrs. Holmes ordered the nanny to move him to a back room where his shrieking would not be audible, then took an aspirin and laid down. A few days after his first tooth crowned, the nanny came running and screaming into the dining room where Mrs. Holmes was breakfasting, babbling about blood.

The toddler's sheets were soaked in it, and when they pulled him wriggling and screaming from the bed to wipe him clean, the cloth snagged on wet draggled downy stubs the length of a man's palm bursting free from his back, like ingrown hairs breaching the surface. Mrs. Holmes spun on her heel and left the room, ushering Mycroft out in front of her and shushing his questions.

Sherlock had four more surgeries over the next few years, but each time they grew back, swelling under his skin and bursting through in explosions of blood and weeping and traumatised staff, until at length the family doctor sat Mrs. Holmes down and advised her to stop.

"They're going to keep growing back, madam," she said, consolingly. "The bone underneath is pushing them out, and we can't remove that without harming Sherlock permanently. Maybe when he's older, after he goes through puberty, we can try removing them then and see if it takes. But for now, it's not doing any good. Your son—"

Mrs. Holmes cut her off. "He'll be my son when he's been fixed. If you can't repair him, then I'll wait, but don't insult me. I'll keep him around for appearances' sake, of course. But the Holmeses are not defective, and the freak is not my _son_."

By the time he was five, Sherlock understood very clearly that it was entirely his fault that his mother was so cold to him, would not speak to him or hold him or stroke his hair the way she did his brother's. He did not understand why, of course, but he had a very good idea that it had to do with the bandages that swaddled his chest and shoulders, that he had been brutally spanked for tugging at when he was four and a half. He learned to endure the itching, and after his mother's reaction, he never again spoke of soreness in his back and shoulders.

At the age of six, he had an Irish nanny who would lock the nursery door when his mother was out and remove the bandages. He kept his eyes tight shut, knowing that it was _wrong_ and _bad_ somehow, and hoping that if he did not look he would not be _wrong_ and _bad_ for participating. The nurse would card her fingers across the surface of his little wings, the length of his forearm, smoothing and straightening the feathers as he shivered with childish delight at her touch. In her thick brogue she would tell him stories of the Angels, of Gabriel and Michael and Raphael, and whisper in his ear that he was not wrong or bad or evil, that he was one of them. Her little Angel, a gift from God.

The one day she forgot to lock the door before removing the bandages was the same day Mycroft came investigating, and there were no more nannies after that, Irish or otherwise. Sherlock was packed up and sent off to a very expensive boarding school, with very strict instructions and a butler to make sure he followed them.

Which he did, to the letter. The Irish nanny, his mother had explained, was dismissed and deported for the crime of telling lies, which was a terrible one. Sherlock was not an Angel, she had further explained, as there were no such things as Angels. He was a freak, and he must never, ever, _ever_ show his growths to anyone. Sherlock had asked her wasn't that telling a lie, to hide his wings from people, and had been slapped across the face hard enough to bruise.

"They are not wings," she had told him sharply. His lip had quivered, but he had not dared to cry in her presence. "They are growths, and they are a deformation. It is not a lie to hide them, because they will be removed when you are older, and no-one will ever know. You are a Holmes, Sherlock, and you will not remain a freak. _Nobody_ must ever know, do you understand me? _Nobody_."

Sherlock understood. He spent his primary school years desperately lonely, returning home only during the holidays, to an increasingly cold and distant mother and a brother who was more and more a stranger to him. His classmates believed him stuck-up due to his family's wealth and position, and his stunning intellect indicated to him he should encourage the belief. He bathed alone in his private quarters, manservant standing guard outside; wore a uniform a size too large; provided a note from the family doctor excusing him from swimming lessons; and sat alone reading during free periods.

In classes, he outshone his classmates easily, letting their resentment for his easily-achieved high marks fuel the dislike his aloofness created. With no friends, there was no risk of discovery through roughhousing or pranks. Sherlock convinced himself it would all be different someday. They would be removed when he was old enough, and he could have proper friends then, and Mummy would smile when she saw him, the way she did at Mycroft.

At night, sometimes, he would light a single candle and unwind the white cotton strips, relieving the pressure that bound the wings tight to his slender body. He made no attempt to inspect them; they were _wrong_, and _bad_, and at fault for all that was ill in his life. He caught sight of them once, in the mirror, when he was almost eleven. They hadn't grown since he was six, still not even a foot long, but the down had molted off to be replaced by proper feathers, sleek and grey—well, likely they would be sleek, if they were not ruffled by the constant bandaging.

Sherlock stared long and hard at them, horrified and fascinated by the way they beat the air, responding to his thoughts as easily as his hands did. Then he threw a towel over the mirror and dove into bed, hiding under the scratchy comforter.

In the morning, wings carefully bound and concealed, he ordered his butler to remove the mirror from his room.

At thirteen, in the second year of secondary school, Sherlock hit puberty and began a terrible growth spurt. To his very great dismay, the wings increased even more dramatically than his height did, getting to be almost six feet long in a matter of months. He reported the news to his mother that Christmas, head hanging in shame. She pursed her lips and left the room without speaking.

Mycroft, on the other hand, shook his head solemnly, and lectured Sherlock for half an hour on the value of discretion and the family honour. Sherlock lost his temper—it wasn't as if he'd grown them on _purpose_!—and when the dust had settled from the resulting shouting match, he was sent back in disgrace to spend the remainder of the holidays at his school.

When Sherlock was seventeen, he fell in love with a beautiful boy. Sebastian was charming, and popular, and he didn't hate Sherlock for being standoffish and clever. In fact he delighted in Sherlock's cleverness, and flattered him shamelessly, showing him off to all his friends and clapping him on the back for every correct deduction. It made Sherlock nervous, but the bindings were tight and the school uniform coat was thick, and he was desperately lonely—and afraid Seb would not smile at him anymore if he pulled away.

He was worried that Sebastian would notice his true feelings and be repulsed by them; after all he _was_ a freak. But when he produced the answers to the mid-term exam for the toughest Master's class, Seb grabbed him by the blazer and kissed him right on the mouth. It took even the brilliant Sherlock a moment to deduce what was happening, but Seb didn't stop, and they kissed there in a secluded corner of an abandoned school building for almost an hour.

The night before the final term of Upper Sixth ended, Sherlock crept out the window where his manservant couldn't see him, and snuck to Sebastian's room, throwing stones at the windowpane until Seb came out to join him. In the dark of the abandoned building, heart beating rabbit-fast, he shrugged off his shirt and unwound the bandages, letting the messy eight-foot wings stretch free and then hang loose.

He heard Seb blow a slow huffing sigh, then start to laugh.

"Blimey, Sherlock. I mean, we knew you were a _freak_, but this—this is just _unreal_."

Sherlock's wings fluttered anxiously as he stared at Seb's smirking face, half-visible in the streak of moonlight through the broken window. Before he could demand an explanation, Seb was hauling himself to his feet, striding over to him.

"Explains why you always kept your clothes on, at least, I suppose. Well, I'd have said it was worth it putting up with you just to have a pet brain to do my assignments for me, but if I'd known I was going to see something like this, I'd have picked you up a lot sooner. Not many blokes get to bugger an Angel." The betrayal of his words pierced Sherlock's heart as Sebastian reached out, pulling at his wings, giving them a sharp and painful tweak as he inspected them. "You really are a special kind of freak, aren't you?"

Sebastian laughed cruelly as he turned and strode towards the exit, hands shoved in his pockets. Sherlock wheeled around in vengeful fury, his face a twisted mask of wrath, and seized Seb by the shoulders, pinning him to the wall with unreal strength.

"If you _ever_. If you _ever_ tell _anyone_," he spat, "a single living _soul_, I will _destroy_ you. I will _ruin_ your family, and leave you penniless and desperate. You can beg on the streets, or send your sister to walk them—if anyone will buy her—but you will _rue meeting me_ for the rest of your pathetic miserable life, do you understand me?"

Petrified, Sebastian nodded frantically, and Sherlock threw him towards the door, wings arching and stretching menacingly towards the ceiling, casting him in shadow. An Angel he was, indeed, but there was more of Lucifer in him than any of the creatures his nanny had described. When the sound of scrabbling feet had receded into the distance, he collapsed, and wept for hours on the floor before drying his eyes and heading back to his dormitory. During the graduation ceremony the next day, he was aloof and reserved as always, barely deigning to nod at the few classmates who farewelled him, and snubbing Sebastian completely.

His appointment with the family doctor was the afternoon of the same day he returned from school; Mrs. Holmes wasted no time. Their hopes were dashed once again, however, when the results were returned.

"You told me it could be done," his mother said flatly, ice and warning in her tone.

"I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Holmes," the doctor said solemnly with a sidelong glance at Sherlock.

"_You told me_ to wait until he was older, until they stopped growing, and that then you could _fix him_. And now you're telling me it cannot be done?"

The doctor swallowed nervously. "Madam, when the bone grew and protruded from his shoulders, it…in simplest terms, Sherlock's circulatory system is…different. His subclavian arteries—"

"Just snip the things off at the root and _suture_ his arteries!" Mrs. Holmes snapped, losing her composure.

"We can't do that, they're routed back to—"

"Then tie the ends back together or something, you're the experts." His mother kept ranting, proposing different solutions and steamrollering over the doctor's objections to each. Sherlock's gut twisted strangely when she waved a finger in the doctor's face, insisting that no Holmes would be allowed to remain a freak and if she would not cut the wretched things off then Mrs. Holmes would find someone who would or do it herself, until the doctor broke through her tirade with a stern shout.

"_He will die_. He will _die_, do you understand, madam? There is _no way_ to remove them without killing him. You can have a living freak, or a corpse. Those are your choices." A heavy silence fell. Mrs. Holmes looked livid, and Mycroft's face was pinched—as if he smelled something foul.

Sherlock, sitting perched on the end of the inspection bed with his messy wings laid out limp behind him, asked quietly, "Can I fly?"

Mrs. Holmes shot him a horrified glare, then swept out of the room. Mycroft drew himself up and began to lecture the resentful teen, but the doctor silenced him, and he followed their mother in a rage.

She told him gently, "Sherlock, the muscles around their base are atrophied from disuse. Look, you can barely hold them up for more than a few seconds."

"But if I exercised," he persisted, "if I built the muscles back up. Is it possible?"

The doctor sighed. "I don't think so, Sherlock." She smiled at him, kindly but sadly. "Birds only fly because their bones are hollow. To have enough area to lift your weight they'd have to be three times this size, and they'd be so heavy you couldn't move or control them. I'm sorry."

Sherlock nodded. She was only confirming what he'd already worked out. He put himself back together, the doctor helping him arrange the broad wings and strap them down, and shrugged into his oversized coat.

His mother and brother were waiting in the foyer. The ride home was silent and tense. At dinner, Mrs. Holmes brought up the elephant in the room.

"Well. We shan't be returning to that quack. Sherlock, we shall find another doctor, and have those things off you one way or another."

"She said it would kill me, Mother," Sherlock answered flatly. "Doesn't that bother you?"

"Don't be absurd."

She didn't answer the question. Sherlock let an awkward silence go by.

"I don't want them removed."

The clatter of cutlery dropped onto a dish. Sherlock stared resentfully at his plate, hunched over.

"I'll pretend I never heard that." His mother's voice was frigid. "Now, there's a surgeon in Mexico City I've heard wonderful things about who does experimental procedures—"

"I won't have them removed," he said again, louder, looking up. His mother's face was white, her lips pursed, and Mycroft was flushed red.

"No son of mine," she said slowly, "will be content to remain a freak."

"I've never been your son," he said curtly, "and I like being a freak."

He left the house five minutes later with the clothes on his back and nothing more.

Sherlock had already been accepted to several Universities, of course; his marks alone guaranteed that. With his financial situation somewhat…changed, however, things had become more complicated.

Fortunately, Cambridge was still suitably impressed with him, even without the Holmes name. After a sit-down with a very sympathetic financial counselor, he secured a sizeable scholarship to their Sidney Sussex college. He survived the summer one way and another, sacrificing dignity for self-preservation, and found himself in the autumn gaunt and threadbare, but eager to begin.

He quickly found to his dismay that a swift wit was not so great a social deterrent here as it had been in primary and secondary school, but he had had long practise keeping others at arm's length; and when he was tempted by friendly overtures, the memory of Sebastian was enough to steady his resolve.

He studied chemistry, biology, sociology, working with single-minded focus on an idea he'd once thought mere fantasy, but he was now determined to see realised. The years flew by as he thrust all desires for friendship or love from his mind, replacing them with data and deduction, and convincing himself that he preferred isolation until at length he almost believed it. It should have been easier than it was, ordinary people were so dull and stupid and _boring_, but he still felt a pang in his heart every time he heard the word "freak" muttered behind his back as he swept through the halls.

Ten years passed. Mycroft became the British government and tried to be a brother to him; Sherlock rebuffed him, but he knew Mycroft kept tabs on him anyway. He convinced himself he wasn't secretly pleased. He built up his business, made a name for himself, even consulted for Scotland Yard.

But the flat he called home had two bedrooms. When he'd moved in, he'd insisted to himself that he'd turn the second room into a laboratory, but moving the bed out was too much work, and he never got around to it. The empty space weighed on his mind, but—it was impossible. To have a flatmate would mean sharing space, no more spread wings lounging over the couch; he would have to be _careful_ again, he would have to hide again, or see the sneer on someone else's face when they found out just what sort of freak he really was.

But he was so lonely, _so_ lonely, and the empty room was like an open wound.

When Stamford's friend, the Army doctor, moved in, Sherlock did not allow himself to hope. Yes, John Watson was pleasant, and polite, but he was not a friend. Freaks don't have friends.

He took John to the next crime scene anyway, to prove it to himself. But he showed John what he could do—the things he could _see_ about people—and John didn't call him a freak, or stare at him in disgust, or anything of the kind.

He said Sherlock was amazing. That he was fantastic, incredible, extraordinary.

Still, Sherlock did not allow himself to hope. Anyone can be clever. _Anyone_ can be clever. He doesn't _know_. If he _knew_…

Months passed. Sherlock wore his heavy coat whenever he could get away with it, and crushed his wings into tight bindings to fit under his dressing gown. John looked at him strangely, but didn't say anything.

Then, one day, he came home exhausted from a difficult case. They'd been sore lately, aching, and his shoulders slumped from the pain. John was out, and should be for a while, he had a date, it should be safe…

He shrugged the coat off and dropped it there at his feet, then ripped the bindings free. His rumpled wings trembled, then shook free, all twelve feet of them. They'd finally stopped growing around the age of twenty-two, but they were the same pretty pearly grey they'd always been. It annoyed Sherlock, sometimes. He felt they ought to turn drab and dull from the lack of attention, the romantic in him thought it would be appropriate; but they remained stubbornly beautiful, outside of their disheveled appearance.

He stood motionless in the room, breathing deeply and straightening up for what felt like the first time in years.

The door clicked shut behind him, and he froze.

After no sound, no reaction came, he turned slowly. John's mouth was hanging open, a shopping bag dangling from his fingers.

Sherlock muttered, "I thought you had a date tonight."

"We had a row," John said simply, "and I called it off." He dropped the bag to the ground and took a hesitant step forward. Sherlock braced himself.

"You've got—you've got _wings_, Sherlock."

Under normal circumstances Sherlock would have rolled his eyes at John's penchant for stating the obvious, but he could only nod, waiting for the hammer blow.

"They're _incredible_," John breathed, and Sherlock blinked. He stepped forward again, hand outstretched, then stopped. "Can I—can I touch them?" Sherlock nodded slowly, and John closed the gap between them, eagerly burying his hands in the mussed grey wings.

"They're beautiful," John murmured, smoothing out the feathers with his fingers. "Why do you hide them?"

"How could I not?" Sherlock asked bitterly. "I'm a _freak_."

John scowled. "I wish you wouldn't call yourself that."

"Everyone else does." Sherlock closed his eyes, leaning into John's touch.

"Well, I'm not everyone," John muttered, and Sherlock laughed—really laughed. "How long have you had them?" and Sherlock found himself spilling the whole story, his birth, his mother's shame, the surgeries, his school years and even Sebastian, then finding himself on his own; the whole mess poured out of him, the loneliness, the fear, the self-hatred, and John guided him to the couch and listened to it all and made small soothing noises and combed and straightened each feather into place until his wings were smooth and gleaming.

"Were you ever going to tell me?" John asked, when the flow of words—and tears, gently wiped away by the sleeve of John's jumper—had stopped.

"Doubtful," Sherlock sniffed.

John nodded. "Understandable." He pushed Sherlock's curls back from his forehead with a delicate touch.

"My gran used to tell me," he said hesitantly after a moment, "about Angels. She said they were watching over us, always, and that they walked among us every day." He paused briefly, seeming to wrestle with himself, then said, "Honestly, I always sort of imagined them looking a bit like you."

"Really?" Sherlock asked, smiling half-heartedly.

"Oh, shut up." John's ears were flushed red. "Yes. Tall and thin with, with the mysterious sort of air you have and—and the cheekbones. I don't know, I was just a kid."

"I'm not an Angel, John," Sherlock murmured, a stray tear leaking out.

John wiped it away. "You're not a freak, either," he said firmly. "You're infuriating and brilliant and beautiful, and I'll chin the next person who calls you a freak."

"It's what I am," Sherlock whispered, barely audible. John gently tapped his chin with a closed fist, and when he opened his eyes, John was smiling.

"Warned you," he said, waving the fist under Sherlock's nose.

When John leaned in to kiss him, he didn't pull away, and a breeze from the window caught the feathers of his wings and for a moment, he could have sworn he was flying.


End file.
